Perhaps one of the most painful changes is the emergence of a social yardstick for determining who deserves to speak, participate or even feel comfortable in a gathering. In many family and social gatherings,
conversations can unconsciously revolve around income, employment, marriage and academic achievement. If someone is earning well, his or her opinion may be given greater importance. If someone is unmarried, the inevitable question may be, "When are you getting married?" If someone is married without children, people may ask when a child is coming. If someone is a student, the question may be, "Did you qualify for the examination?" If someone is unemployed, the conversation may become uncomfortable. Such questions may appear ordinary to the person asking them, but they can be deeply painful for the person answering them.
This social yardstick can gradually make people withdraw from gatherings. A person may stop attending weddings, family functions or social meetings not because he dislikes people, but because he does not want to be subjected to repeated comparisons and uncomfortable questions. Thus, the society that should provide emotional support can unintentionally become a source of emotional isolation.
The impact is perhaps most visible among children and young people. School life was traditionally associated with friendship, laughter, games, curiosity and memories that remained with individuals throughout their lives. Today, however, academic competition and parental expectations can transform the school environment into a continuous examination of performance. Marks, ranks, entrance examinations and future careers may begin to dominate childhood. Students may appear happy in yellow school buses, white uniforms and smart classrooms, yet appearance does not always reveal the emotional burden they carry.
The most worrying aspect is that many students do not feel comfortable discussing their struggles with their parents. They may fear disappointing them or being compared with classmates, cousins or siblings. A child who receives 85 percent may be asked why another child received 95 percent. A student who fails an examination may feel that failure has become a failure of identity rather than merely an unsuccessful attempt. When achievement becomes the primary source of parental pride, children can begin to believe that they are loved for what they accomplish rather than for who they are.
Kashmir has already experienced the devastating consequences of conflict. An entire generation has grown up amid uncertainty, disruption
and loss. We should therefore be particularly sensitive to the emotional wellbeing of our young people. The challenge before society is not only to provide good schools and competitive examinations but also to create an environment where students can speak about fear, failure, disappointment and confusion without feeling ashamed. If we fail to create such an environment, we risk producing a generation that may possess qualifications but struggle with loneliness, anxiety and emotional exhaustion.
The competition for government employment presents another dimension of this problem. In a place where secure employment is highly valued, thousands of young aspirants devote years to competitive examinations. Many spend long hours within the four walls of libraries, reduce their social interaction and sacrifice recreation, family time and sometimes even basic emotional needs in pursuit of a government job. Hard work and discipline are admirable, but when an examination becomes the sole definition of a person's future, failure can become psychologically devastating.
The tragedy is that an examination measures performance on particular subjects at a particular point in time; it does not measure the complete worth of an individual. Yet society sometimes treats examination results as a final verdict on a person's capability. An aspirant who fails may be asked repeatedly about the result, while the years of effort, discipline and sacrifice behind that result remain invisible. Instead of asking, "How can we support you?" society may ask, "What went wrong?" or "What will you do now?" Such questions can deepen the sense of failure.
The solution, however, is not to abolish competition. A society without ambition or effort would also stagnate. The need is to redefine competition. We must learn to compete with our previous selves rather than constantly competing against our neighbours, classmates, relatives and friends. Excellence should coexist with empathy. Achievement should coexist with humility. Success should create opportunities to help others rather than reasons to look down upon them.
Kashmir has a rich social and cultural tradition built around hospitality, neighbourhood, family ties, mutual assistance and the idea of shared belonging. Preserving these values does not mean rejecting modernity or ambition. It means ensuring that modernization does not destroy the
human relationships that make society meaningful. A beautiful house is valuable, but a peaceful home is more valuable. An expensive marriage may impress society for a day, but a stable and respectful marriage matters for a lifetime. A high examination score is an achievement, but the ability to remain kind, compassionate and mentally balanced is also an achievement. A government job can provide security, but it should never become the measure of a person's dignity.
Ultimately, the crisis facing modern society is not competition itself but the transformation of competition into a social philosophy. When every success demands another person's defeat, relationships suffer. When every achievement becomes a comparison, happiness becomes conditional. When every gathering becomes a place of judgement, people begin to withdraw. And when children learn that their worth depends upon marks, ranks and careers, education loses its deeper purpose. We therefore need to rediscover the meaning of community. We need families where children can speak without fear, friendships where notes and meals can be shared without jealousy, neighbourhoods where success is celebrated collectively, and gatherings where people are valued without asking how much they earn, whether they are married, whether they have children or whether they have qualified an examination. Society should once again become a place where a person can enter without carrying a résumé of achievements.
The real measure of a progressive society is not how much its people possess, but how humanely they treat one another. Kashmir does not merely need more successful individuals; it needs stronger relationships, healthier families, compassionate parents, supportive friendships and communities where failure does not become humiliation. Competition may push us forward, but cooperation gives us a reason to move forward together. If we can restore that balance, society can once again become what it was always meant to be: not a marketplace of human worth, but a shared space of dignity, belonging, peace and hope. ( Concluded)

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